Giants’ Jerome Henderson questions effort on Cooper Kupp touchdown
With under 12 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of a Week 6 game, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp ran by New York Giants defenders and into the end zone.
The play came roughly an hour after Giants head coach Joe Judge had challenged his team, who were trailing by 25 points at the time, to give a full effort.
It was obvious, however, that the effort was still lacking. At least on that particular play as safety Logan Ryan took a bad angle and defensive backs Xavier McKinney and James Bradberry were seen merely jogging in the direction of Kupp.
“I was making my way over there,” Bradberry told reporters on Thursday. “I was on the left side of the field, he crossed over, ran a flat route, caught it and ran it into the end zone. We gave it full effort the whole game, not just the fourth quarter.”
Defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson didn’t see it that way and admits he has an “obvious” problem with the effort given in that moment.
“I don’t know if they coulda gotten there,” Henderson said, via the New York Daily News. “I don’t know, but we’ll never know. That’s the problem: We’ll never know. I’d like to know.”
Ryan, one of the team’s defensive captains, didn’t want to hear about an allegedly lack of effort from analysts or former players.
“I don’t think guys were jogging. I think he caught the ball and he scored the ball,” Ryan said. “If it’s my effort or JB’s effort, a question there, I think that I play hard every play and that play I think I played as hard as I could until the end of the play. I understand that’s their right to analyze and critique, and I’ll take it. I’m going to go out there and play as hard as I can every play. I think I made a living on that and I’ll continue to do that.”
Ryan also attempted to downplay Henderson’s frustrations.
“I think he’s just saying it’s in the past and we don’t know, and we can’t harp on it now. I think we’ve got to go out there and play hard this week,” he added.
Even if Ryan doesn’t want to blame Kupp’s touchdown on a lack of effort, it’s clear he and Henderson are on very different pages — a problem that has plagued the team at multiple positions all year long.
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